


Sucker

by withered



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternative Universe - No War, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Imagine there was no war, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: "I bought you for charity, put your shirt back on."In which Hermione's on a campaign to win the ex-games, and Draco's just trying to do enough good deeds to get into heaven. Or something.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rating may go up.

 

 

Hermione decides, about two minutes in, that this is a terrible mistake – an error of mass proportions – like knocking a piece of expensive china unceremoniously off its pedestal and sweeping it none too subtly under a rug while pretending she isn't being distastefully eyed by bystanders of her public faux pas.

Her miscalculation is vast and embarrassing, and she can't even believe –

"Granger, you're hurting my feelings."

She huffs out an annoyed breath.

How he has the audacity to sound offended is beyond her.

"Well, you're hurting my eyes," she snaps, still refusing to let go of her face which she's clutching with a desperation reserved for riding hippogriffs bareback.

She absolutely will not capitulate. No. She's seen many things in her life she could have  _absolutely positively done without_ , and with her powers of recollection as formidable as it is, daring to look at him directly is just asking for trouble.

The fact that the only warning she had of his intention to strip at all had been the sharp, milk-white jut of his hip and the grooves of the dimples in his lower back, is appalling enough. How Hermione will be expected to look at the man's waist again, as casually as one does, she can't fathom.

God, she's been too long without a shag, and that's the only reason – she swears – that the idea would even enter her head at all, period.

She can practically hear the insufferable smirk in his voice, "I wouldn't mind helping you put a blindfold on if that's what you're into."

Arse.

"I bought you for charity," Hermione reminds with a huff and an indignant wave of her hand, trying to dispel the embarrassed flush of heat that rises rebelliously from her skin. "for Circe's sake, put your shirt back on."

"Granger, do you have any idea how this is supposed to work," is his dry response, and the fact that his voice is low, heavy with implication, but also  _much too loud for him to be so easily heard_ , makes Hermione realize that the ferret is trying to get closer and  _no – she will not have it!_

"Stop," she interjects, waving a hand in front of her to emphasise the point.

Not that it really helps.

For one, he's actually, rather promptly, obeyed (which puts his blindfold suggestion in an  _entirely different_ light) and for another, her flailing has led to physical contact and fucking damn it –  _when did he get muscles?_

Fifth year, her brain unhelpfully supplies.

After Viktor Krum came to Hogwarts on that European student exchange tour, and suddenly no one cared about Draco and his storm-grey eyes and slicked back platinum blond hair and –

"Granger." His voice is patient, infuriatingly so.

"Put on your shirt," she grits. "I refuse to have a conversation with you otherwise."

"So, you'll stop yelling?" he casually asks, and he's entirely too reasonable for a man who's standing half-naked in her living room.

"Yes," she replies, biting her tongue against the immediate urge to retort  _that she wasn't yelling, she was emphasizing._

"Alright then."

There are footsteps and then a rustle of fabric, and Hermione makes her second – third? Isn't it a bit too early to be making so many without the assistance of alcohol? – mistake of the day and peaks between her fingers and  _nopenopenope!_ "You did that on purpose!"

He straightens from his bend-and-snap routine, and peers over his shoulder innocently. "Granger, you've gone absolutely batty."

_Why you little –_

"Ugh," she says instead, and as if summoned by that incantation alone, her doorbell rings.

 _Circe,_ she curses once more as she leaves Draco to button up that damnable shirt which was at least eighty-seven percent of the reason why she'd even put her bid in and – really, if she'd known how mesmerizingly distracting the play of muscles at the man's back were, not to mention how biteable his arse, she might've gloated more for winning at all, but –

No. Not. Stop.

Upstairs brain, Hermione,  _focus!_

While she could make every excuse in the book for why she'd even attended Daphne Greengrass' charity tea in the first place – a good cause, the opportunity to network, the free cakes, Pansy's famous 'punch' – her reason was far more selfish, and frankly, petty as hell: and his name was Louis Hugo.

One-time ex-boyfriend; all-time piece of work.

He'd gotten a new belle, if the woman he'd been snogging outrageously in the hallway whenever Hermione left her flat, was any indication, and by the loud conversations he conveniently held within her hearing,  _it was serious._

If it had been happening to anyone else, Hermione would've scoffed – said it wasn't worth it, do her best impression of her best friend, Ginny, and decree that he was an utter pounce and she could do better; that she shouldn't care at all.

Except it wasn't happening to anyone else.

It was happening to her.

And though Hermione had never divulged the nature of her research, her work or her heritage as a witch, Louis and her had been together since her final year at Stonehenge.

With over three years since, and the closest thing to living in each other's pockets they could get – flats in the same building while her parents warmed up to the concept of cohabitation without marriage – Hermione would've thought it was  _courtesy_ to mourn for a bit, indulge in some mutually assured loneliness as they both internally juggled over getting back together and forgetting the whole spat had ever happened. What was the saying,  _absence makes the heart grow fonder?_

No, apparently not

Absence makes the dick harder for literally  _anyone else._

They'd only been separated for two weeks and he already had someone new?

_The audacity; the sheer gall._

And maybe it was the agonizing hurt that overwhelmed her whenever she saw her first love all over someone else; to do so enthusiastically, so uncaring of her feelings, that it made her bury it all in inconsequential fantasies of revenge with a vague plan she'd concocted with Cho after a frustratingly fruitless night of rune translation, to show Louis up with a new beau of her own. Someone who was better in every way.

And then Daphne's tea invite had dropped into her lap, hours into her hangover, like her own personal answer from the fates herself.

 _Annual bachelor auction,_ it had said, and she'd bit her lip and debated as the charity prizes worked the room; flirting up storms and winking like they were being paid for it.

It was ridiculous to think she'd win.

And then, she'd caught Draco's eye, and the thought had moved from ridiculous to impossible.

Yet.

_Yet._

She opens her door with a sigh, prepared to see Mrs Bonaszek and hear the same story she tells fifty times about her grandson –  _and oh, has Hermione seen her cat – and Hermione, you look thin!_ Instead, what she gets is Louis, awkward smile and blue eyes and a hickey on the hinge of his jaw and – she just barely stops herself from slamming the door right in his face.

"Hermione, hi, I wasn't sure you'd be home uh – my key, it doesn't -"

"Work?" she interjects, voice flat, "I changed the locks."

She'd spelled them as soon as she moved from heartbroken to furious to vengefully throwing up a charm on his door that led him to paying a locksmith twenty-two times to replace it.

It wasn't exactly malicious. Childish, most definitely. But she'd taken her glee where she could get it.

"Er, yes I suppose you would," he rubs the back of his neck, bashful – embarrassed – perhaps just a hint ashamed? "Actually, I-I forgot one of my boxes here, do you mind?"

She does.

She does a lot.

They'd worn her parents down after three years. He was going to move in next month, had started leaving boxes of his things in preparation. And then Hermione -- Hermione was going to tell him the truth.

She'd arranged it with the Ministry and everything. An appointment had been made. A representative from the Muggle-Relations Council had been organized. It would be official, on paper, he'd finally get to see her world – see her for who she really was – 

Hermione is startled when Draco pops up beside her in the doorway, hip pressed against hers to make room for himself as he balances the offending box in one arm, and snakes the other around her waist.

"Yours, I'm guessing?"

Louis flushes – awkwardness giving way to anger that riles up hers –  _how dare he –_

"That's it," he replies, offering his hands to take the weight which Draco none too subtly accepts, and doesn't ruffle a hair on his perfect windswept hair to do.

"Figured," Draco tells her, "you always did have horrible taste," and his smirk says what he doesn't, that he  _knows_ and Hermione can't decide if she's furious or mortified.

"Beg your pardon?" Louis interjects.

"Yes, you would," Draco observes, his gaze both unimpressed and withering in that way only the aristocratic could ever pull off.

"Excuse us, won't you?" Hermione says through her teeth as she slams the door with a satisfying rattle of the door-chain, and the thud of the wood before she's turning to him with a scowl. "Malfoy, what the -"

He raises a single brow in silent interruption, his lip twisting in that incorrigible Slytherin smirk. "So, charity, you said, was it, Granger?"

_Ugh._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A title change, just because I thought this suited better.
> 
> (Also, this fic may or may not have been inspired by the Jonas Brothers' return with the song of the same title. My 2008-self is still shooketh.)

 

 

It's a horrible idea, a terrible one.

It's not just ridiculous and childish at its core, but it's a waste of time and energy – and she knows it. But Circe, does she  _want it._

Hermione never makes it a habit to lie to herself, at least not on purpose. So, she's aware, rather intimately, of her own faults – a swotty know-it-all and a genuine 'fun killer' by Ronald's standards – that she's accepted that she's vindictive to boot isn't a surprise.

She may be almost ten years older, but she is still the same Hermione that kept Rita Skeeter in a jar.

In Hermione's defence, if the reporter hadn't, one, been an illegal Animagus, and two, used that little breach against the law to gather information in order to create fake-outrage over Professor McGonagall's appointment as Hogwarts' new headmistress, Hermione wouldn't have done it on the grounds of it being – well,  _illegal_ , considering she had kept the reporter  _in a jar._

Then again, Hermione never claimed to be much of a saint.

However, what she did claim, loudly and proudly at that, was her indisputable title of Brightest Witch of Her Age. Hermione had held the coveted honour throughout her school career, and into her degree at the United Kingdom's most prestigious institute after Hogwarts itself.

With that in mind, there was no rhyme nor reason for Hermione to be making such terrible life choices like this.

_And yet._

"What do you get out of it?"

Hermione is aware she's squinting at him suspiciously, and she probably sounds entirely too paranoid for the answer to her prayers to give her ex a taste of his own medicine to land in her lap as conveniently as Daphne's charity tea invitation had, but Hermione would argue that that's  _exactly why._

Screw not looking a gift horse in the mouth, she was going to pry its mouth open and examine his teeth if she had to.

Not that Draco would put up much of a fight.

The man was downright congenial for a bloke whose sexual overturns were so ungraciously declined.

In fact, Draco's looking downright comfortable, practically relaxed, arguably  _amused_ by the whole thing despite the apparent soap-time drama her life has become.

Knowing his penchant for drama, Hermione wouldn't put it past him to see it for nothing more than a distraction from whatever charmed life pureblood heirs live.

Almost conversationally, she muses about whether Draco's simply offering his assistance in order to keep himself diverted.

No doubt he's gathering the stories as she speaks, ready to set them on whatever table of whichever fancy dinner parties The Honourable and Most Noble Houses of Old attend like a favoured party trick.

In another life, perhaps she'd pitch a fit about being reduced to entertainment, as it is, she's been taken for a fool enough to simply roll her eyes at it. There were positives to be had when people underestimated you for no reason, and Hermione's made use of it plenty. Anyway, it's none of her business really, what other people find amusing, so, what if it's her?

It isn't like there's much of a downside to  _canoodling_ with Draco, of all people (his words, not hers) anyway.

And she did –  _technically_  – buy him.

"Like you said, it's for charity," he says with a wink, and Hermione withholds the urge to  _ugh_ all over his perfect face.

Instead, she sets aside her teacup with a quiet  _clink_  and raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him. "I can't decide if you mean the charity Daphne was touting, or me."

Despite the threat of murder in her eyes, he has the nerve to feign innocence. "Why can't it be both?"

"You're insufferable," she declares and his façade cracks with a smirk like that's the best compliment he's ever heard.

Unlikely, considering his reputation in school, and the situation with his face and his arms and just –  _ugh – puberty should not work that way, it just isn't right or fair to everyone else._

Cocking her head, she continues to squint at him as she informs, "I'm not buying it, you know."

"Two for two," he sighs, all dramatic hurt and mischievous eyes. "you really do just go around breaking hearts, don't you, Granger?"

"I've known you since we were eleven," Hermione reminds, unrepentant. "You don't just  _do things_  unless you or yours get something out of it. So?"

Again, he sighs, and it's his turn to look unimpressed. "You really just can't let me have my fun, can you?"

"I'm allergic," she deadpans and to that, he snorts.

Draco doesn't reply immediately, instead, he turns his teacup around on its saucer, threads his fingers through the handle and considers.

She won't admit it – certainly not to him – but she knows that tell of his well enough; heard it dissected often over breakfast whenever Draco couldn't be heard holding court over at the Slytherin tables. It hadn't happened a lot in the earlier years so when it did it was cause for speculation.

There – if, Circe help her, anyone asks – that's what she'd say; not that she'd grown oddly attuned to his contemplative quiet as the years went on, particularly after what happened just before fifth year –

"I'm sure you know the stories."

She makes a face, catching back on just in time. "About?"

"My father, Granger," and for the first time, his frustration is obvious; exhaustion pulling his mouth into something pained and angry. "That whole Death Eater connection mess."

 _Oh. Oh, wait –_ "That was true?" she blurts, though, stupid  _stupid_  that's not –

"Didn't have to be," and now Draco just sounds outright bitter. "Regardless, the mess held. It's been bad for business and as my father is beyond repairing the damage himself, it falls to me. Hence, charity."

_Ah, well then…_

"Faking a relationship with me hardly counts beyond the actual charity ball you're taking me to, though," she points out carefully.

At that, he seems to slide back into his previous form – all loose shoulders and a smirk at his mouth. "Figured I'd horde all the good deeds I could get my hands on; anything to get into heaven and all that."

 _Of course._ Hermione huffs out a breath.  _Can't say I'm surprised._  "The date for the charity ball is in a month's time."

"Already counting down the hours? I'm touched."

 _Prat,_  she thinks, rolling her eyes. "For once you're not wrong. After the ball will be the termination date of all this." She waves at the distance between them, thankful for the expanse of her dining room table, and grudgingly grateful that Louis had insisted on the eight-piece dining set instead of the four. For parties, he'd said, conveniently forgetting that she hated them, and had nothing in common with his friends no matter how hard she tried.

Regardless, a month is enough time to convince Louis, and long enough to smooth over some of the Malfoy family's tarnished reputation.

A so-called Death Eater and a well-known Muggleborn witch in a relationship? The stuff of Cho's trashy romance novels, a thought that is entirely unhelpful when Hermione has Draco playing her supposed lead:

"And what, dear Granger, would we possibly do in the meantime?" Draco's brows lift in suggestion as his voice drops and  _no, for Circe's sake._

"You showed your face, you brought it up," Hermione reminds, "you pretend to be the boyfriend I've conveniently gotten just as my ex is supposedly getting serious with someone else across the hall. In order to – yes – make him jealous, and satisfy my own petty ego."

"Ah, you mean the blonde with the legs."

Her voice is appropriately flat, "Excuse me?"

"She was giving me elevator eyes from his place." Draco shrugs, lifting his teacup in a mock toast. "Nice work on that sticking charm on the door, by the way, very Weasley Twins of you."

_Circe, give me the self-control not to cut a man._

"I wouldn't worry about her," he adds almost absentmindedly, "definitely not serious."

"Arguably worse then," she declares, and means it, though the suggestion alone is enough to make her heart tighten in phantom agony. "We were together for four years, and only apart for  _two weeks_ , but he's already shacking up with somebody else."

"Have you considered that he checked out of the relationship longer than the two weeks though?" Hermione scowls, and he lifts his hand in defence. "Too soon?"

With another huff, she viciously adds another lump of sugar into her tea, even if she's had most of it already. The solid sugar particles have barely dissolved before she sets aside her spoon with a clatter, and choosing to ignore his input entirely, she says, "You get yours, I get mine."

For an instant, Hermione thinks he'll go quiet again in the way his eyes shutter, but the moment passes quickly and his smirk comes as infuriating as always, changing the shape of his words from a tease to a declaration, "The immortal words I live by."

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

“You’re the actual worst.”

“Why, Granger, you wound me,” and Draco has the actual audacity to _look it_.

She’d hiss at him if she wasn’t currently being watched simultaneously like the most interesting thing in the room, and the grossest. Hermione likes to think the two things cannot co-exist, especially with the way some of them are not so subtly sneering behind their ornate fans and side-eyeing her as if expecting her to try and pickpocket them.

“When you suggested we go for a walk I didn’t realize it was to my death.”

“So dramatic,” he clucks, throwing her an amused look. “We’re just going shopping, Granger.”

“Oh shove it, you prat,” she spits.

She should’ve known the saving grace that was the evening after her decision and agreement to make use of Draco for the month was entirely too quiet.

Naively, Hermione had attributed it to Ginny, Ronald and Harry being overseas at a playoff against Bulgaria, and she’d just assumed Cho had to be excavated from their office from beneath the pile of paperwork Hermione had dumped on her in retribution for all the times her colleague had done the same.

And perhaps she had just gotten lucky yesterday, managing to avoid the – no doubt – _loud_ inquisition that would take place regarding her mental wellness.

Perhaps the Universe had thrown her a bone, given her a breather, Circe knew she’d need all the energy and endless reserves of patience to deal with this shit storm:

 “I don’t know what dragging me in my Sunday lay-in outfit will achieve besides making me look like a charity case, and making you look deranged for considering being seen with me at all,” she informs.

Hermione had just settled into her couch, a tome cradled in her arms and a fresh pot of tea at her elbow when Draco had strode through her fireplace in a billow of green flames, took one look at her with her hair bushy (and frankly alive), her reading glasses perched on her nose, her chunky sweater, and her mismatched socks, and declared they had work to do. A lot of it.

She’d been too indignant at the suggestion to care where they were going, something Draco was clearly taking pleasure in as he reminds, endlessly and infuriatingly patient, “You were the one who insisted that there was nowhere you needed to go that you needed to change.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “Besides, I for one, think you look adorable.”

There’s a titter, muffled giggles.

Her cheeks warm, though she can’t decide if she’s embarrassed or angry, something that’s becoming common place with Draco, she finds. “Eat me,” she all but growls.

“Only if you let me,” he informs with a sweeping side-eye smolder that has some idiot in the corner gasping and fanning herself and just – that Hermione’s own body has betrayed her and is flushing red is just – _ugh._

_I need to get shagged, pronto._

Before she can think to curse him, the sales associate – previously being harangued by an elderly witch with a far too liberal hemline for a woman who’s _definitely_ not wearing underwear – turns to them with a smile like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, eyes reflecting how dead she is inside even as she politely inquires, “What can I help you with?” That is somehow coolly professional even with an undercurrent of _a dragon could come blowing through this store and I would thank it._

Inwardly, Hermione shudders.

Retail workers are terrifying creatures.

That the sales associate doesn’t seem particularly interested either way about Hermione’s appearance is something she can at least appreciate, a thought that is fleeting when Draco replies, “Anything she wants.”

Then, it’s like the sales associate completely transforms, her practiced mask of attempting-to-care completely shatters, and she’s suddenly in raptures, practically squealing, _“Of course!”_

“Wait – _Draco –“_

“Have fun, darling,” he says against her cheek, and then Hermione’s being dragged off into her own personal hell.

Over Hermione’s indignant splutters, the sales associate chirps, “I’ll have her back to you an hour, Mr Malfoy!”

And Hermione would’ve sworn he’d tip his hat if he had one on, instead, he settles for smirking at her from over his shoulder as _he leaves her there_ before she’s spirited away to another part of the store, to stand before a series of inconspicuously folded mirror-doors before being ushered through with a flourish.

At her failed attempt to charge out of the store after him, the sales associate stands in her way with a smile that is arguably more terrifying than the one Hermione had seen earlier.

“I don’t -”

“Mrs Malfoy -”

Hermione turns beat red. “That’s not -”

“You? Yes I know,” the sales associate says, giving Hermione a look that conveys how odd she finds her. “Mrs Malfoy is one of our most beloved patrons, and anything her son wants, he’ll get, and he’s made it clear that whatever you want – you’ll get.”

“But I don’t want -”

“You’re his new girlfriend, right or wrong?”

God, _wrong. So wrong._ “Right,” she grits.

The sales associate nods. “So you have to look your best, right or wrong?”

Considering Draco has always consistently appeared like he’d walked off the pages of a Burberry campaign, or some other such high-end fashion catalog, it brings Hermione the greatest of pains to agree, “Right…”

“Great,” she chirps, “and that’s why Mr Malfoy brought you here because he trusts _us_ to make sure you just as good beside him. Right, or wrong?”

Hermione’s really starting to hate this game. “Right…”  

“Then pick whatever you want, or I’ll pick for you. Really, I shouldn’t be trying this hard to convince you to shop with someone else’s gold but here we are,” she sighs dramatically disappointed, and probably far too used to the contrary happening.

Hermione, however, can’t abide by such a stereotype, though any attempts to argue otherwise is rebuked with the sales associate’s interjection, “Have you ever heard of the muggle movie, Pretty Woman?”

Brows furrowing in confusion, Hermione replies, “Yes?”

 “What do you remember about the sales woman that didn’t want to help her out in the beginning of the movie?”

 _How did I become the prostitute in this situation?_ “She…didn’t get her commission?”

“Exactly,” she says with an enthusiastic nod before she furrows her brow and declares, determined, “That won’t be me.”

Hermione only has a second to yelp before all hell breaks loose.

She doesn’t know who to blame for this, but she’s starting to suspect it’s her.

If only she hadn’t wanted to retaliate against Louis’ carelessness, if only she didn’t go to that charity auction, didn’t see Draco, didn’t place that bet – It’s definitely her fault, oh, Circe.

If Draco wanted to show Hermione that she wasn’t the only one who could enact petty revenge, Hermione’s seeing it crystal clear. _I get mine, and you get yours, indeed._

At the very least, she’s gotten to empty his vault a little, no matter how Hermione cringes at the thought alone.

By the time Draco shows up again, as promised, an hour later, he’s got a Styrofoam cup of something steaming in hand, and she’s half way to sobbing in relief and going off on him like an angry toddler.

She was hungry and tired and _she couldn’t fucking believe she spent an entire hour shopping –_

“You’re lucky I’d rather drink this than throw it on you,” she informs, grabbing the cup and pressing her lips gratefully against the rim to swallow down the perfectly made coffee.

“That’s mine,” he tells her, irrelevantly.

When Claire, the sales associate and instrument of torture, brings the bill, Hermione takes it from her and shoves it against his chest instead, shooting him a look that threatens everything from disembowelment to outright castration. “No, that’s yours.”

Wisely, Draco says nothing, and only when Claire assures him that “she’ll look beautiful”, does he decide to ruin her day further by replying, “She always does” and the level of glare Hermione wants to throw his way doesn’t exist yet.

Hermione has no doubt she'll get a handle on it at some point. 

_This is going to be a long month._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no self-control. None whatsoever. Thank you to the Dramione Facebook group, Strictly Dramione, for reminding me I was still in this fandom when they featured Thursdays for their Under the Radar event.
> 
> As usual, I have no idea what I'm doing. But there will be fluff and fake-dating and pretending they're not in love, and that's the kind of speed I'm on.
> 
> Also, this fic is on ffn by the same name.
> 
> [Click here if you want to find out more about my work](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/)


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